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First Passenger Trains to Lhasa Sold Out

May 30, 2006

Railway officials have sold all the tickets for the first five passenger trains scheduled to depart for Lhasa from major Chinese cities on July 1, 2006, according to a May 5 Xinhua report. Commercial passenger service on the Qinghai-Tibet railway from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Xining will begin "trial operations" on July 1, the report said. Deputy General Manager Ma Baocheng of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company said that passenger trains to Lhasa will leave daily from Beijing, Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province), and Xining (the capital of Qinghai province). Trains will depart every other day from Shanghai and Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong province). Ma did not say how many passengers each train can carry. Zhang Fuhua, of the Qinghai provincial Tourism Administration, said that he expects an additional 800,000 "travelers" to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) via Qinghai, according to a May 3 Xinhua report. The report did not say when Zhang expects those arrivals to occur.

Railway officials have sold all the tickets for the first five passenger trains scheduled to depart for Lhasa from major Chinese cities on July 1, 2006, according to a May 5 Xinhua report. Commercial passenger service on the Qinghai-Tibet railway from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Xining will begin "trial operations" on July 1, the report said. Deputy General Manager Ma Baocheng of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company said that passenger trains to Lhasa will leave daily from Beijing, Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province), and Xining (the capital of Qinghai province). Trains will depart every other day from Shanghai and Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong province). Ma did not say how many passengers each train can carry. Zhang Fuhua, of the Qinghai provincial Tourism Administration, said that he expects an additional 800,000 "travelers" to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) via Qinghai, according to a May 3 Xinhua report. The report did not say when Zhang expects those arrivals to occur.

Railway workers began a 100-day "large-scale check and maintenance" of the railway section between Lhasa and Golmud (in Qinghai province) on March 15, to prepare for the July 1 "test run," according to a report the same day by Xinhua. Railway company sources said that the company "made the decision to carry out the final preparations after a cargo train's trial operation result on the section on March 1." The report did not address whether or not the cargo test revealed operational issues that required additional investigation. The company hopes that the test will "ensure trains can run on sections built on the frozen belt at a stable speed of 100 km per hour," according to Xinhua.

In February 2006, Xinhua reported that Professor Wu Ziwang, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences frozen soil engineering laboratory, said that faster thawing of the permafrost "might greatly increase the instability of the ground ... where major projects such as highways or railways run through." The railway could become unsafe in a decade, Wu said, according to a Beijing News report in January. About 340 miles (550 kilometers) of track are vulnerable to damage by melting permafrost, which can distend the railway base in winter when it refreezes, according to an August 2005 Xinhua report.